What is the best software for capturing DV from a camera though firewire?

When i use movie maker to capture the tape the quality is awfull but when the camera is plugged in to the tv it looks great.

I haved tried various software programs including Movie Maker, but I find that Adobe Premiere Elements is the best one. It offers the best options for capturing, editing, and saving or burning DVD's. It is a stable program that rarely crashes and it is relatively easy to use.

I used to have a $2600 toshiba laptop, loaded with $600 Adobe Premiere, and Roxio Studio to burn the DVDs. It was a huge, unreliable mess. I ended up losing all my movies during a series or awful freezes. I bought a $1000 MacBook and have yet to run into something that I could not accomplish using only the included software.

iMovie 08 includes easy sharing options such as uploading right to YouTube, burning DVD's, compressing for email, and a variety of other format shortcuts.

Adobe Premiere elements is a great entry level program for making simple movies on a PC.

Final answer:
If you want to spend <$300 for a temporary solution: Adobe Premiere Elements.
If you're going to go any better than that, save your money and invest in a machine that's meant for it. Mac Mini's are around $700.

Try Nero, it works for me!

The best standalone program for DV capture is actually Scenalyzer...and probably always has been. There's not may professionals who haven't used it at some time. You will still have to edit and produce on something but this program will get it in for you ready for import.
I hope this helps
Best of luck.
http://www.scenalyzer.com/

For great editing, you'll need a Mac.


http://www.apple.com

Welcome to the world of compression. In order for your computer to handle all that data it compresses it when you import using i movie and final cut express.
This is because the chips and graphics cards in most pc's and macs struggle with the sheer levels of data to process each second.
If you want uncompressed capture you will need to move up to Final cut pro.
However all is not lost!
Have a go at exporting back to h264 at the end of your project and I suspect a lot of your probs will vanish in a puff of pixels.
You will never however be able to retain the full quality of your tape when you compress it. Something has to be lost to reduce file size.